GOP leaders on board; will others join?

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Boehner says he doesn’t know how many members will back the “crap sandwich.”
AP Photo

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) was one of the members who attended the private meeting with Boehner. But he won’t be backing the bill, and he spoke out against it during the Republican Conference meeting.

“I just asked the simple question, ‘You have to understand the nexus of what you are voting on,’” McCotter said he told his fellow Republicans. “This is not simply a financial-services bill; this is a generational bill and will have consequences for years to come.”

Party leaders started surveying their rank and file during the Sunday evening session. Both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were expected to start reaching out to members Sunday night, GOP aides said.

Boehner and other party leaders began the three-hour meeting in the Cannon Caucus Room by directing lawmakers to avoid speeches; instead, the leaders said members should ask questions about the bill itself . That decision upset many of those present in a room where tension coursed just beneath the surface.

California Rep. Devin Nunes, a Boehner ally, had two questions for his leaders: Why weren’t members allowed to make speeches? And didn’t party leaders always complain that Democrats had shut them out of the process? He did not remain at the microphones long enough to hear their response to either, according to one member present.

McCotter, a member of the elected leadership as chairman of the Policy Committee, left the meeting after Boehner and Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (R-Fla.) reminded Republicans not to speak ill of each other.

Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the Financial Services Committee who was publicly removed from the negotiations on this bill, told a gathering of conservative lawmakers Sunday night that he would oppose the bill, according to some present. In emotional remarks to the group, Bachus said he'd told Boehner, and Boehner had said he was disappointed. Bachus, who supported Boehner in his bid for leader, joked that he might not be ranking on Financial Services next year.

Indiana Rep. Mike Pence -- the first member of either party to publicly oppose the initial Treasury proposal -- lobbied leaders to start over again from scratch.

Appealing directly to Blunt, Pence told the whip that he was an admirable negotiator – the two fought over the budget each spring when Republicans controlled the House – and could win more fundamental concessions from the Democrats if he stayed at it.

There was a smattering of applause for the outspoken conservative, but not the roar that many supporters of the bill were braced to hear.

The tone in these meetings, which began earlier this week, has shifted from angry to somber and resigned.

Mississippi Rep. Chip Pickering, one of the retiring Republicans, told his colleagues that this was probably the last vote he would take.

“It’s one of the most important votes you’ll ever take,” a member who was there quoted Pickering as saying. “It’s a legacy vote. You’ll have to live with this for the rest of your life.”

No one wants this bailout, but the lesson which should be drawn is that we can't reward the deregulators but electing McCain. It has been the deregulators like McCain who have caused this mess, and only Obama can be trusted to bring about the requisite regulations to make sure it never happens again.

an extraordinary turn of events has changed the biggest GOP brisket in recent history, eight years of completely irresponsible leadership providing by a mind numbingly foolish President, a power mad cabinet without regard for the law or truth, and Republican Congresses that voted for tax cuts for the wealthy, putting a trillion dollar war on the national credit card, and found more of their own in jail for taking bribes from lobbyists than I can remember. Now they want to stand on conservative principles, when ordinary Americans have already lost $ 4 trillion in home equity alone, when inflation is rising, unemployment is rising, and credit is vanishing even for the credit worthy. As Virginia's Kantor has gone--denying any responsibility for what his party and President did, so go the outraged Republican minority. Not this time. Yes, it's a "crap sandwich" but eat hearty Mr. Boehner, Mr. McCain, Mr. Bush and the rest of you who won't cop to what you brought about by greed, and incompetence. We may have to pay, but you will go.

They better eat that crap sandwich with a smile on their face because they are getting the smack down that they had coming for a long time. Thank goodness that we had a democratic majority that is going to protect the taxpayers and our measley 401Ks. Without a democratic majority middle America would've been eating the crap sandwich and it would've been business as usual on Wall St. Oh, change is already in the making. Too bad we had to already be so far gone.

It is easy to blame the Republicans... But Congress and Senate have been Democrat for some two years now and they should have known and acted upon. Everybody is to blame... To see Dodd, who took money from Freddie and Fannie, there today... It was repulsive. I would let the Democrats do whatever their Chosen One dictates (since he seems to know everything about everything) and see if his talk brings a solution. Vote no! to this piece of "crap sandwich" and let the Democrats and the DalayBama save the world from the evil of Bush alone, since they don?t need anybody else.

It is laughable that that some posters are claiming that deregulation caused this mess. NO IT WAS A FAILURE TO PASS REGULATIONS. It is the legislature that makes the laws not the White House or its administrative staff. The SEC cannot enforce regulations that don't exist. Don't bother blaming the Bush White house.

In a stunning role reversal. It has been the Republican administration that warned the legislature 17 times since 2001 that the Government Sponsored Entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed tighter regulation. It was Republican Senators who obligingly submitted several bills that would have provided those regulations. It was the Democrats who killed these regulatory bills. Interviews with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd denying any problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and denying the need for regulation can still be viewed on the internet. Their words live on and those with short memories can review the actual footage.

This problem defies the usual stereotypes. In this case it was the Democrats cowtowing to the fat cats at the FF's. It was the Republicans leading the charge for tighter regulation. No regulations = no deregulation. No regulations = no enforcement of regulations. Its that simple.

Now there was one deregulation, removal of Glass-Steagall prohibitions against speculating in the banking sector, that contributed to the current crises. This deregulation was pushed by Treasury Secretary Rubin in the Clinton White house. Removing Glass Steagall allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to bundle mortgages into securities and sell them to investors throughout the financial market. Securites backed by a Government Sponsored Entity implied government backing and gave investors a false sense of security. These investors were left holding the bag when large numbers of mortgages in their securities packages started foreclosing and the FF's didn't make good on their backing.

There were regulations (not deregulations) that were root causes. The Community Reinvestment Act was used to bully private sector banks into making sub prime loans to non-creditworthy individuals. Unless you have had your head in the sand, you should know that record foreclosures in the sub prime mortgage market is the root cause of the melt-down. It was cruel to place people into homes they couldn't afford and would surely wind up losing. It was cruel to artifically drive up home prices while claiming to provide affordable housing. It was affordable only as long as the loan was interest only. It was cruel to create a housing bubble that when it burst led to people owing more on their home than it was worth. It was greedy to profit from this. So who were the cruel and greedy people who took advantage of the poor, exploited them and then left them in worse financial shape than they were before. The DEMOCRATS. Who wudda thunk.

Interestingly both McCain and Obama have been players in this firestorm. Obama represented a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against Citicorp alleging discriminatory lending practices. Obama was one of the people using the CRA to bully lending institutions into issuing sub-prime mortgages. He then moved on to ACORN, an organization that encouraged the poor to file lawsuits alleging discrimination. McCain was co-sponsor of a bill that would have regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This bill directly addressed and would have corrected many of the problems that led to the meltdown. This bill was rejected by Democrats in a straight party line vote. So there you have it. Who was on the wrong side of the issue and who was on the right side.

Take a lesson from history. Vote for the man who tried to be part of the solution instead of the one who was part of the problem. Some people learn from their mistakes. First they have to admit they made them.

The trouble is Batman that a Republican president who believes in free markets and deregulation has been in charge these last 8 years. No matter what Congress should have done the last 20 months this mess occured on his watch and he was slow to respond. So, if the president wants to show leadership and address this crisis, he needs to get his party to eat this crap sandwich. The Democrats have never claimed to be able to solve this my themselves. The call has always been for bipartisan action. I doubt there is a single congressman on either side working on this issue that doesn't have some money in their pockets from somebody involved. Freddie and Fannie are only part of the problem. We started deregulating during the Reagan revolution under the belief that unfettered markets would lead to economic growth, and for a short time it did, but then the banks and lenders invented all the ways to play the system and it quit being about mortgages and loans and more about derivities and other accounting tricks and now, here we are.

It is easy to blame the Republicans... But Congress and Senate have been Democrat for some two years now and they should have known and acted upon.

Yes, of course. The Democrats should be responsible for NOT cleaning up the Republicans mess. That argument is reminiscent of a child who makes a mess of his room then blames his/her siblings for not cleaning it up.

The Republicans created this mess and they are responsible for it. The Democrats are going to have to clean it up, yes. But, only after they can wrestle power from the Senate and the White House because no way will the cultal personalities of conservative thought (that are the Republicans) allow the Democrats to get anything through the Senate nor the White House. Your post is proof enough of that.

Deregulation caused this disaster. McCain was a champion of deregulation. That's it. That's all there is to it. I'd like to see one Republican with the guts to admit they made this crap sandwich. But none will because conservatives ARE conservative because they are cowards.

To blame the Dems for this shows a basic lack of understanding about how this took place. There's plenty of blame to go around but this has been brewing since Ronnie Raygunz started his trickle down economic plan in the 1980s. We're still paying for money he borrowed in 1984 to prop up the economy to win re-election. The "Free Trade" folks are to blame and the only thing that system has ever brought the USA is massive debt and outsourced jobs. The last eight years has run us headlong into this and it's mostly the policies of the chimp and the Rethugs who've been in control for most of his failed presidency. Many economists have predicted this for years but it was supposed to happen after the election so the blame would go to the Dems but it's simply not the truth. The crap sandwich the Rethugs need to choke down is mostly their own fault and is likely necessary to avoid meltdown. Please pull your heads out of your butts and don't vote for another free trade/unregulated type. We Dems will bring a generation of peace and prosperity and still do a better job of protecting the country.

If the Republicans play politics with this thing and don't vote for it tomorrow, the DNC needs to run ads reminding everyone that those fanatics are willing to ruin our economy in order to score political points. Good Lord America. Let's vote these people out of office. They are %$#^ing crazy and they caused this mess.

If republicans support this raid on the treasury to bail out Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines and the rest of the democrats who have been buying votes with the taxpayers' money, then they will loose and deserve to. You don't abuse the power of the federal government to force banks to loan money to people who don't have the means to repay their loan no matter how politically appealing it might be, and no amount of lipstick on this ugly duckling will change it into a swan. Democrats have been using the power of the regulatory agencies since the days of Jimmy Carter to force banks to make loans to people who couldn't pay it back. First, under the rubric of stopping "red lining"; next under Clinton to provide "affordable" housing all. Anything is "affordable" if you don't have to pay it back. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have blocked all efforts at increased regulation beginning in 1997 when Jim Leach, then House Banking Chairman, tried to pass legislation to tighten up the activities of Fannie and Freddie. They waived the false flag of racism when GW sent up legislation 4 separate times, beginning in 2001, to increase the oversight and regulatory rules governing Fannie and Freddie, and the republicans caved in the face of the onslaught of the civil rights lobbies. And it looks like they are ready to cave in again. Whatever drubbing the GOP gets in November it will have earned; the democrat crooks, thieves and liars will have succeeded. The only problem is, the country will be the looser.